1869 engraved portrait of Blodgett

Foster Blodgett Jr. (1827–1877) was an American politician elected mayor of Augusta, Georgia, from 1859 to 1860, and returned to the mayoralty via military appointment between 1867 and 1868. Blodgett was elected to the United States Senate by the Georgia General Assembly in 1871, but not seated.

Blodgett was born in Augusta, Georgia.[1] He was mayor of Augusta from 1859 to 1860.[2] His administration was noted for the introduction of Augusta's waterworks system.[2] In December 1860, Blodgett presided over a meeting of Unionists in Augusta.[3] Faced with threats of property damage and death, he served in the Confederate Army until April 1862.[3] Between 1865 and 1868, he was postmaster of Augusta.[3][4] He was suspended from duties as postmaster in January 1868, due to charges of perjury,[4][5] for which he had been arrested in 1867.[6] He was reinstated as postmaster in April 1869.[5] Overlapping his tenure as postmaster, Blodgett was appointed as mayor of Augusta by General John Pope in May 1867, a post he held until December 1868.[2]

He as also superintendent of the state railroad.[7][8]

He was elected chair of the Georgia Republican Party's Central Committee on July 4, 1867.[9] Blodgett was called by the prosecution as a witness and testified at the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson on April 9, 1868.[10]

Before the December 1870 United States Senate elections in Georgia, Blodget wrote, "It is the duty of the white citizens of the state to see that the colored citizens are protected in their exercise of their constitutional rights."[11] Though others were elected to Georgia's seats on the United States Senate, Blodgett was selected by the Georgia legislature for a term beginning in 1871.[8] The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate refused to seat him.[12][13]

The University of Georgia Libraries have a collection of papers related to him.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b "Foster Blodgett papers". University of Georgia Special Collections. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  2. ^ a b c Jones, Charles Colcock Jr. (1890). Memorial History of Augusta, Georgia: From Its Settlement in 1735 to the Close of the Eighteenth Century. D. Mason. pp. 176, 187, 191. ISBN 9780598902238 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ a b c "Statement of Foster Blodgett and evidence in reply to the charges of Joshua Hill". April 10, 1871. Retrieved August 8, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "The President's Trial". Boston Daily Evening Transcript. April 20, 1868. Retrieved August 8, 2021.
  5. ^ a b Senate Documents. Government Printing Office. 1870 – via Google Books. That he was suspended without just cause, from the [third] day of January 1868, until the [third] day of April 1869, when he resumed the duties of postmaster at Augusta, Georgia, by order of the Hon. J. A. J Creswell, Postmaster General, dated March 30, 1869.
  6. ^ "Arrest of Hon. Foster Blodgett of Augusta, Ga". The New York Times. 1867-12-03. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  7. ^ Herbst, Josephine (1998). Pity is Not Enough. University of Illinois Press. pp. xxviii. ISBN 978-0-252-06652-8 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ a b Garrett, Franklin M. (2011) [first published 1969]. Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s-1870s. University of Georgia Press. p. 832. ISBN 978-0-8203-3902-3 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ Matthews, John M. (1976). "Negro Republicans in the Reconstruction of Georgia". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 60 (2): 145–164. JSTOR 40580272. On May 20, 1867, an executive committee of the Union Republican Party of Georgia, whose white leaders were the same as those of the Union League, issued a call for a convention to assemble in Atlanta on July 4. At the gathering, control of the new party passed from the officers of the Union League, who were Atlantans, to a group of ambitious politicians, also white, from Augusta. The Republican postmaster there, Foster Blodgett, was elected president of the convention and chairman of the party's state central committee, while John Emory Bryant, also of Augusta, was chosen secretary. Thereafter, the Augusta Ring controlled the party's organization.
  10. ^ Extracts from the Journal of the United States Senate In All Cases of Impeachment Presented By The United States House of Representatives (1798-1904). Congressional serial set. Washington Government Printing Office. 1912. p. 250 – via Babel.
  11. ^ Rogers Jr., William Warren (1998). ""Not Reconstructed By A Long Ways Yet": Southwest Georgia's Disputed Congressional Election of 1870". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 82 (2): 257–282. JSTOR 40584054.
  12. ^ Butler, Anne M.; Wolff, Wendy (1995). "Case 57: Thomas M. Norwood v. Foster Blodgett, Jr.". United States Senate Election, Expulsion and Censure Cases, 1793-1990. Prepared under the direction of Sheila P. Burke, Secretary of the Senate. United States Government Publishing Office. pp. 160–163. OCLC 1077410671.
  13. ^ "The Election Case of George Goldthwaite of Alabama (1872)". United States Senate. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
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